


A Brilliant Display

by ssleif



Category: Venom (Movie 2018)
Genre: Domestic, Gen, Multi, Venom is a little shit, but Eddie love him anyway, relationship discussion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-24
Updated: 2018-12-24
Packaged: 2019-09-26 09:30:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17139302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ssleif/pseuds/ssleif
Summary: Eddie and Venom navigate human social patterns. Also discussion of Peacocks.





	A Brilliant Display

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cupidsbow](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cupidsbow/gifts).



> For cupidsbow, who wanted outside POV, esp Anne or Dan, domestic stuff, Anne’s take on V, having been a host, Anne and Dan as good people, V learning about the world and relationships, and an emphasis on the friendship before the romance and before anything else. Hope this works for you!

Some days, Eddie is very sure he has made a mistake, a big mistake, and the only way out is going to end up being jumping off a bridge.

Not thanks to depression, or anything, just purely to mix his pancakes in peace and quiet.

Today’s subject of confusion (and conversation, for hours and hours), was monogamy.

**_We have already broken all our rules to be with you Eddie. We do not do this among our own kind, Eddie. What is sex, Eddie? Why only with a single mate, Eddie? We have watched the peacocks, Eddie. Anne should have multiple mates for ideal breeding, Eddie. We could be one, Eddie._ **

Actually, scratch suicide, he just needed to throw out is his television so the was no more unsupervised consumption of nature shows.

“Well, V, first, Anne doesn’t really want kids right now.”

**_But Eddie, she is very smart and beautiful. Her genes need to be passed on._ **

“Buddy, I think she would disagree.” Eddie knew she would disagree, loudly, and possibly with a knee in someone’s balls if they pressed the point.

He carefully didn’t think about that, while he added chocolate chips to his bowl of batter.

“Also, V, humans aren’t very much like peacocks. When’s the last time you saw a man with a great big rainbow tail like that?”

**_We have seen it on the Ru Paul racing. We have observed sexual dimorphism in your species is weak, and humans have to make their own mating displays._ **

“Okay,” fair point, “But outside of pride, mardi gras, drag queens…” he began to pour the chunky batter onto a pan.

**_You have done it too, we have seen._ **

“What?” Eddie’s hand wavered, and he quickly set the batter down and grabbed a towel to wipe the stove where he spilled, before it burned.

**_The designs on our body that you were not born with._ **

Okay, fair, tattoos were complicated, and definitely something completely foreign to Venom.

**_And the colorful arm things that make us feel pretty._ **

The…

“My bracelets?” the pancake was starting to bubble nicely, and Eddie flipped it.

**_Yes. When we get another, we turn our arms again and again to admire it, we wonder if other people notice it. It makes us feel like we look good._ **

Oh. Okay, there’s some truth to that. Eddie had never been hugely into jewelry, but actually over the course of his relationship with Anne, he had become more and more comfortable with how much he liked bracelets. Nothing too flashy, and nothing in chains or metals… just, colorful strings and fabrics, sometimes the plastic ones for charities and things (although he always wore through them really fast). But…

“That’s not really a mating thing, V. Yeah, I think I ca pull them off, but mostly I just like them. I wear them because I feel good doing it."

**_We feel good, Eddie._ **

“That’s right, V. And as long as it makes us feel good, then it doesn’t matter if other people like it or not.”

He flipped a pancake.

**_Except for naked in public._ **

He missed the catch, but Venom’s head suddenly shot out from his torso, grabbed the wayward flapjack out of midair, and disappeared back into his hoodie.

That would never not be freaky.

 

  
As luck would have it, though, the topic had still not quite been dropped by the time they next had dinner with Anne and Dan.

Eddie was not 100% sure he understood what’s going on at those. He liked them! It wasn’t that, but he had to admit it was an unusual situation. There was ‘being friendly with your ex’, and then there was ‘regular dinner invites for you and your alien partner, hosted by your ex fiancee and her new fiancee’, and that was a whole other thing.

And inevitably, because Eddie would never have a normal interaction again, and definitely couldn’t have nice things, Venom spilled the feathers, as it were.

“What’s with the new bracelets?”

Uh. Shit.

“I like them,” Anne went on, slicing another bite from her chicken. Eddie was on his second one, because V had eaten the first one in a single bite before it touched the plate, and then grumbled about it. “Is there a new vendor in your area, or…?”

Be cool, V, don’t bring up the-

 ** _“Peacocks.”_** Said the Venom head now perched on his shoulder.

Eddie sighed. Never a break.

 

 

Eventually, he explained the situation (without implying that Anne needed multiple men to inseminate her in order that she have maximum paternal input and assistance in raising her children, thanks for nothing, Venom). There followed a winding and only moderately uncomfortable train through territories of sexual orientation and discussions of polyamory.

Eddie almost felt bad enough about the definitely-not-what-Anne-and-Dan-planned dinner conversation that he might have skipped dessert all together… but no, then Venom would pout, and then probably bring up the multiple insemination thing just because Eddie didn’t want it brought up, in retaliation.

( ** _But we saw it, Eddie, when we kissed you._ **

“No, V, YOU kissed me, mostly, be honest.”

_**But she wanted to is why we thought of it. And she was already courting Dan. So she does want multiple mates. We need to be more colorful, Eddie, we need more bracelets.** _

“Even if she does still like us, V, that doesn’t mean she wants a relationship with us. As far as I know, she prefers monogamy.”

**_But--_**

“No, V, one partner at a time. Maybe multiple partners in series, but one at a time, and right now that's Dan.”)

When Anne finally walked them to the door, Eddie took a moment to do the most damage control he could, and reassure her that he was working on Venom’s comprehension.

“Not just because we aren’t, you know, the thing anymore. Which I respect! I respect you and Dan. And mostly so does V.”

Anne smiled, so Eddie continued.

“To be honest, I don’t know if I am ready for any kind of new relationship. With anybody. V is…”

**_What are we, Eddie?_**

“It’s like, it’s an intimate enough relationship for me right now. It…”

Anne nodded, still smiling.

“It takes work.”

“Exactly! It takes, like, emotional work and stuff. And I don’t think it would be fair to try to start something with somebody, when I know I’m, like, really, uh, engaged with this.”

Anne tried not to laugh. Eddie wasn’t offended. It was an unusual situation.

**_Plus, we are a secret._ **

“And then there’s the Alien thing.”

Anne gave up and let herself laugh.

 

  
Later, after her ex and his new… something have gone home, to do whatever mind-boggling things they do, Anne crawls into bed and hunkers down, warm under the covers and from Dan’s body heat.

She starts to relate the whole mess to Dan, including the parts she’s pretty sure she picked up on, that Eddie was trying very hard to keep under wraps. She starts to laugh again, at the image of Eddie trying not to pull out his hair while explaining sequential versus simultaneous partners… When Dan surprises her. He interrupts her recount, to push back gently (which is one of the things she loves about him) on the idea that it’s all ridiculous, and points out that it’s actually really impressive and admirable that Eddie is being so balanced and emotionally mature about the whole thing. Dan commends Eddie for being very aware of, and responsible for his own emotional limitations.

“Honestly, if Polyamory is something that interests him in the future... with the uniqueness of his situation, it might offer even more for him that it does for many other people who practice it. He seems well prepared, or like he  _will_ be well prepared, to be a part of a more complex relationship structure in that way. He’d probably be really good at it.”

Anne hadn’t realized that Dan knew so much about different relationships.

“Oh, yes... didn’t I tell you about Rick and Alice?”

He had, they were his best friends in undergrad, but she hadn’t actually put it together, that that was what had been going on. She’d apparently been blinded by her own heteronormative gaze. Which she thought she’d really gone a long way towards remedying? Especially at work and in comparison to her colleagues, she prided herself on being extremely open minded. It hadn’t been hard, after that first year of adapting to Eddie’s balls-to-the-wall-crazy enthusiasm and lack of forethought. The number of situations he’d gotten into… and, incidentally, they’d had many conversations about things like sexuality (Anne was pretty straight, but Eddie was solidly bi).

But, if she was following this correctly, Dan was…

“Wait, so you’re bisexual? Or, not monosexual? Is that right?”

Dan frowned.

“Kind of? I, I actually think I’m mostly straight, Rick notwithstanding… But I definitely have it within myself to be at least romantically interested in multiple genders… and frankly, in multiple people at the same time. When our triad dissolved, it wasn’t because of lack of interest, but rather because we were graduating and pursuing different post-grad programs at different universities, and even as 21-year-olds, understood that we definitely weren’t ready to handle balancing both the relationship dynamics and the distance.”

“And you haven’t…”

Dan shook his head.

“And I haven’t had a relationship with more than one partner since.”

Dan sat up, suddenly, pulling her up with him, so they could look each other in the eyes.

“And I want you to know that I am definitely open to at least the discussion of other types of relationships in the future. If our partnership is to continue, I think this kind of open communication is one of the most important pieces.”

“I agree.” And she did, even if a lot of this was new.

“Additionally, I very much want you to know it’s okay by me to feel however you feel. I know-”

She pulled back.

“I would never-”

“I know!”

He closed his hands over hers, catching her eyes again.

“I know, I’m not accusing you, or questioning your behavior, or implying anything about your intentions. I just want you to know that you can come to me with anything, and it will probably be better received than you maybe think.”

He paused, lifted a hand, touched the side of her head, gentle, encouraging.

“I believe the human mind has a great and untapped capacity for empathy and feeling… And anything either of us is feeling is definitely something that we should able to work on, work around, or bring to whatever level of fruition we want.”

And as she drifted off that night, she thought about the little rainbow-and-black band she had picked up at lunch one day, now sitting in her night stand drawer. She’d wanted to give it to Eddie, had thought of him, and how he might smile when he looked it, touched it on his wrist. She took a deep breath in, and let it out, and gave herself permission to give it to him the next time she saw him.

It didn’t have to mean anything.

And if it did mean something, well, maybe that was okay too.

Venom would apparently be pleased, at least.

 

 

( _ **Eddie! She wants to be our mate! She wants us to provide for her future chicks just like Dan!**_

“Okay, I’m calling bullshit, V. You know what human offspring are called. You giant fucking troll. Why do I love you so much, huh?”)

**Author's Note:**

> Have an excellent holiday!


End file.
